To Learn the Future: Poems for Teachers - the perfect gift for teachers

Edited by Lilias Fraser, Jane Cooper and Kate Hendry, To Learn the Future is a selection of poems that will grip at first reading – perfect if the only time you have is five minutes in a rushed lunch break. The choice of poems includes insight for days when teachers need to find extra courage, compassion and commitment, as well as celebration of the inspirational, the funny and the reflective.

This is a pocket-sized reminder of the integrity, passion and commitment that inspires people to become teachers, and the wealth of experience and voices in classrooms and staffrooms. With these poems to hand, for the good days and the tough moments, no teacher is ever alone.

Jane Cooper taught English in Edinburgh high schools for 26 years. She loved introducing people to poems, and she mentored many student and newly-qualified teachers. Jane now works in the Scottish Parliament, where she helps keep the written record of what is said, done and decided there. She is also the author of fifteen school textbooks, and of 365 Ways to Get You Writing.



Samuel Tongue is Project Co-ordinator at the Scottish Poetry Library. His first pamphlet is Hauling-Out (Eyewear, 2016) and his second, stitch, is forthcoming with Tapsalteerie. He has published poems in numerous anthologies and magazines including And Other Poems, Cordite, Gutter, Ink, Interpreter's House, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Magma, and Northwords Now. He was awarded a Scottish Book Trust’s New Writers Award in 2013 and is featured in Be The First to Like This: New Scottish Poetry (Vagabond Voices, 2014). He is currently co-editor of New Writing Scotland and poetry editor at the Glasgow Review of Books.

Kate Hendry teaches English in a secondary school. She is also a poet; her first collection, The Lost Original, was published by HappenStance Press. She is a member of Edinburgh’s Shore Poets and is a trustee of StAnza, Scotland’s international poetry festival.